Business travel can be wearing after a while. What with delays at the airport and last minute cancellations, samey hotel rooms and bland convention rooms it can soon become tedious. It can also be difficult to fit in activities outside of the business agenda when travelling with colleagues. However if you are travelling alone you can make the business trip more enjoyable. To make your time more pleasurable take time to indulge yourself in something special like a gourmet meal or a trip to a spa or even engage yourself in a hobby.

By factoring in some downtime you can ensure that it’s not all work and waiting in airport lounges. If you enjoy sightseeing take time to arrange a walking tour. If you love music seek out the local concerts that are performing during your stay. If you enjoy golf you are bound to find a decent course in the vicinity of the hotel.

You can make your meal a highlight rather than a drab evening. Seek out a high dining restaurant and indulge in a gourmet meal. You can enjoy dinner without distraction and if you feel a little conspicuous take a book to read while you eat.

Take some time to relax outside a café or wandering through a park or even catch a film. Just make sure you schedule some time to unwind.

Popularity: 13% [?]

You may think that business travel means travelling at a premium but there are ways you can save your money when booking a hotel room by using the right negotiation patter.

You need to keep at the forefront of your mind that every evening around a third of all hotel rooms across the UK are empty. You stand a very good chance of negotiating a better rate and you stand a better chance of getting a bargain by dealing with the hotel directly rather than trying to haggle with a reservation line. Its no good to be shy, you have to be hard faced and cheeky!

Never accept the first fee that is offered to you. There will be a variety of rates available in every hotel for the rooms and they will start by quoting their top rate. Questions to ask are: what is the corporate rate? Are there any promotions on? Then see if they can make you a better offer. If you can’t get them to budge and request a suite at a standard room rate or go for a room on a concierge floor.

Hotels operate with the philosophy that a room booked for a low rate is better than the room staying vacant and increasingly hotels are training their staff to make sure they don’t let the customer get away due to high rates. If you are struggling to strike a deal ask to speak to the manager. The manager may be more inclined to make an offer rather than let the room go empty.

Popularity: 13% [?]

The hotel group Swissotel Hotels and Resorts announced plans this month to launch a new property based in Kolkata. The opening will take place this winter and will the first of this brand’s in India. This is welcome news for business travel.

Swissotel, has contracted the Bengal Ambuia Housing Development to manage the hotel which will house 147 rooms. The property will be included in the City Centre – New Town property complex which will also include restaurants, cinema and a shopping centre.

There will be three restaurants within the hotel which will also include an open-air restaurant, a speciality eatery and a poolside and lobby bar. There will be great meeting amenities for business travel with a whopping 1,261 sqm of conference rooms.

The president of Swissotel, Meinhard Huck said:

“India is the world’s second-largest nation. Consumer demand is growing steadily, particularly in the cities and the middle class, which is also growing rapidly and has ever increasing consumption needs. Against this background, we see great potential for our hotel chain and are delighted to have found a well-known partner that appreciates our Swiss values.”

The hotel is built just 3km away from the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International airport, in the Rajarhat district. This area of Kolkata is home to various international commercial and IT businesses. Kolkata is not only the capital of West Bengal but also eastern India’s top financial centre.

Popularity: 21% [?]

There are plans for the Park Plaza to open the first of its Art’otel in Amsterdam. This hotel will become the tenth of this brand of hotel to be opened by the group and the date for the grand opening is in early 2011. Based in Holland’s capital this is a great addition for business travellers.

The hotel will be situated directly opposite Central station in the Kadaster building. There will be 100 guest rooms available spaces for showcasing art works, and social and cultural events as well as an art café.

This development is part of a project to regenerate the Kadaster building and the surrounding land. Originally the building was Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd’s, a shipping company, head office. In more recent times the building has housed the Amsterdam registry office.

The chief executive and president of the Park Plaza Hotels, Boris Ivesha, was quoted as saying:

“To develop our first Art’otel in Amsterdam is an exciting evolution. With Art’otel Amsterdam, we bring a modern, contemporary and edgy hotel to the city’s accommodation offering, presenting guests who have a passion for art and travel the unique opportunity to literally sleep in an art gallery.”

There are two hotels under the Park Plaza brand already in Amsterdam and these can also be found in close proximity to the Central Station. There are more Art’otel hotels due to be opened with Cologne and Marrakesh opening later this year and another due to be opened in 2012 in London. This lifestyle brand of hotel offers something different to leisure and business travellers from the norm and will delight all art lovers.

Popularity: 7% [?]

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) and Westin Hotels and Resorts have come together to offer a helpline for business travellers and the like in the US who can’t get a good night’s sleep. This initiative is in aid of honouring the ten year anniversary of the Westin Heavenly Bed.

A free help line has been set up, 888-TIME-4-SLEEP and will be answered by medically trained NSF staff who specialise in sleep related problems. Solutions will be offered to travellers who have well-known sleep issues such as snoring, insomnia and even sleep walking.

Callers will be able to contact the helpline Monday to Friday in the evening from 6pm to 1am (Eastern Standard Time). This is considered to be the most frequent time that most people prepare for bed or will be having sleep issues. The helpline will be open until 15th September 2009.

NSF staff will advise callers on the various lifestyle factors that can disturb sleep. Tips for a sound sleep include the following:

• Sleep in total darkness in a cool room
• Do not eat for two hour before going to bed
• Book hotel rooms with an eastern or southern facing window to benefit from more sunlight. This will help your body to adjust to the new time zone

Popularity: 6% [?]

The Middle East is set to see eight new properties from hotel operator Rotunda this year. This will include the launch of the new Centro Hotels in Abu Dhabi and another couple of properties in Dubai.

Rotana brand Centro Hotels have been long anticipated and first property is set to debut in October this year located in Abu Dhabi on Yas Island with a Dubai opening to follow quickly after.

The Centro brand has been developed to appeal to business travellers. These properties are three star rated and above and come kitted out with wifi, C Taste, a full service restaurant, C Mondo bar, fitness facilities and also a deli-like takeaway service.

There will be 259 rooms in the Centro Hotel which will be situated next to a Rotana hotel. The deluxe Yas Isalnd Rotuna hotel will have 308 rooms and is four star rated. It will be opening in October also. This will be in time for the Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on the Yas Marin Circuit. From hotel balconies guests will have a prize view.

The Park Rotana is also set to open in Abu Dhabi. This will be located on the edge of Abu Dhabi and offers a mix of suites and rooms plus a range of banqueting and conference facilities, a fitness centre, a swimming pool and numerous dining amenities.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Hilton Hotels is in the process of launching a new mobile service for customers in the UK. This will allow leisure and business travel customers to book hotel rooms via their mobile phones.

This mobile service can be accessed by entering the Hilton.co.uk site on your mobile device. Using Mobile Travel Technologies, a Dublin based specialist, the service provides access to change existing bookings and view information and pictures about hotels. Information about facilities and even directions to the hotel can be viewed.

The Hilton Mobile Service has been integrated with the Hilton Honors loyalty scheme which enables members to see a points summary and also book quickly as certain field will be populated already on the booking form.

For iPhone users there is a Web App version and combined with the GPS capabilities in iPhone users can also see a list of Hilton hotels in the vicinity with the distance calculated from the user’s current location.

The vice president of brand web sites at Hilton Hotels, Geraldine Calpin commented:

“By launching local mobile services for Hilton customers in the UK, we not only improve customer service, but create a new distribution channel for our products.”

According to Mobile Travel Technologies (MTT) this use of mobile travel services is expanding by twenty per cent per month. MTT founder and executive director, Gerry Samuels said:

“Mobile technology is playing an increasing role in new marketing and distribution strategies of major hotel chains. As consumers increasingly take advantage of the convenience of mobile to make bookings and make changes on-the-go, hotel chains are now seeing strong revenue growth as well as having a customer service advantage.”

Popularity: 9% [?]

There are plans by the Rezidor Hotel Group to expand their Park Inn brand across the globe over the following three years with new launches in Poland, Norway, Dubai and Tunisia announced recently.

Norway will be seventh hotel for Park Inn and will be located in Steinkjer, in Nord-Trøndelag county. It will house 110 rooms and is due to open in 2011. Featuring an all day restaurant and meeting spaces it will be situated next to a water spa, water park and a gallery which will exhibit the work of Jakob Weidemann who is a well known Norwegian abstract artist from the 1950’s modernistic art movement. This new Park Inn will appeal to both leisure and business travelers.

The chief executive and president of Rezidor, Kurt Ritter, said that the group saw Norway as one of the biggest markets. He went on to say:

“With almost 6,000 rooms in operation, the country accounts for 10 per cent of our existing portfolio.”

The Park Inn Wroclaw will have 206 rooms and will be opened in 2012 which will coincide with Poland hosting the UEFA European Football Championship. This is the second Park Inn located in Poland. The other is situated in Krakow and opened early this year. When Park Inn Wroclaw opens it will be the closest hotel to Mikolaj Kopernik International Airport featuring a lobby bar, restaurant and conference facilities for business travelers.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Hilton has made known that it is due to expand the Doubletree brand within the UK and is set to open properties in Milton Keynes and Bristol by the end of 2009.

In Bristol Hilton is in the process of converting the Cadbury House Hotel and Country Club which is a four star rated hotel. It will be launched as the Doubletree by Hilton and will offer leisure and business travelers a selection of seventy two rooms, a meeting space, health club and spa amenities and a top restaurant and bar. This Bristol South hotel is located just thirteen miles southwest of Bristol and is close by to the village of Congresbury. For business travel it is a handy ten minutes drive to the Bristol International Airport.

At the same time Doubletree will open a newly built hotel within the MK Dons Football Club at Milton Keynes. It will be fully integrated into the professional sports complex which is situated at the front of the stadium at the west stand. It will boast 127 guest rooms with many having a prize view of the football pitch and access to the stadium seating.

Both hotels are part of franchise agreement and are due to open by the end of this year. Doubletree now has seven UK hotels open or under development and Hilton is also rolling out the brand across Europe.

Popularity: 15% [?]

The high luxury Japanese hotel chain Okura Hotels and Resorts has started searching out properties in the business cities of Paris, London and New York targeting business travellers In Europe and the States.

Since the launch of the hotel’s flagship property based in Tokyo more than forty years ago, Okura Hotels and Resorts has amazingly opened just one more hotel in Europe. This was the Okura Amsterdam which was opened in 1971.

When questioned about the Okura Hotels and Resorts plans to expand their hotel chain across key business locations in Europe and the United States, the general manager, Marcel van Aelst, based at the Hotel Okura Amsterdam commented:

“When people ask if we want to expand into London, Paris and Manhattan, I say, if you ask a kid if they want an ice cream, how do they reply?”

He further went on to explain that the hotel chain was negotiating property deals in London and are imminently looking to sign and seal a management deal.

In their continuing expansion across Asia, the Wen Wan Okura Resort containing ninety two rooms and located at the Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan will open its doors this September. There are also new build projects underway in Macau which are due to open next year and also one underway in Taipai in Taiwan due to open in 2012.

Popularity: 13% [?]